In recent years people of our nation and the world have come to realize and appreciate the realities of our energy resources. People are continually reminded of the shortages of energy by continuing to pay greater prices for energy, and in some cases even being unable to purchase gasoline and oil at any price for example.
Our situations in the field of energy has encouraged the implementation of programs designed to conserve energy and has in general spurred a renewed interest in designing and developing more efficient machines. In this latter regard, over the past seven years or so, there has been substantial research and development in attempting to design and make the internal combustion engine more efficient. The work that has been done in this area has covered a wide range. For example, there has been much work in reducing the size of internal combustion engines for automobiles. In addition, there has likewise been a great deal of work in attempting to make the engine itself more efficient. In this regard, for example, there has been a vast amount of development in the area of heating or vaporizing fuel prior to combustion to make the same more volatile and to generally increase the amount of useable energy extracted from a specified volume of fuel.
Certainly there has been progress in designing a more fuel efficient engine. But yet the progress has not been as great or as substantial as needed in terms of the scope of our energy problems. This is particularly significant since the internal combustion engines itself gives off substantial energy in the form of heat to which a large degree is not utilized by the vehicle engine. Therefore, it would seem appropriate and desirable to attempt to harness this energy given off and expelled by the internal combustion engine and attempt in some way to redirect it back into the engine for useful work.